by Davyne DeSye
Neither spoke on their return to the Persian’s flat on the Rue de Rivoli. Petter could not guess at his father’s thoughts as they mounted the stairs to the Persian’s sitting room, but Petter watched the older man as he moved ahead of him, caught up in the imagination of his father in his youth and the amazing underground fortress he had built. Genius, indeed!
CHAPTER 20
CHRISTINE AGAIN
Christine lay abed, restless and full of energy, desperate to be up and about the room, feeling, touching, exploring, but knowing full well that she must maintain her appearance of lethargy and despair. The servants would be in soon to bring her sparse breakfast. She had woken earlier when they came to stoke and refill the samovar with the wonderful cinnamon-scented coffee she had come to love. On every other morning, she had still been abed when the lamps were turned up and breakfast was delivered. This morning, the servants must find her there as usual.
Even knowing that she should pretend to sleep, Christine could not keep her eyes closed. Her eyes combed the dim room as she remembered the clever hidden trap doors and spy holes of their home in Sweden. While Erik was a genius at contriving new and different trap doors for each room as the architecture warranted, there was a pattern to Erik’s building. Her eyes roved over the barely seen fixtures and furniture of the room hoping to discover something familiar, known.
Christine had already located three possible locations for trap doors, but she had been too afraid of interruption to investigate. Instead, she spent the day in the timeless light of the lamps trying to gauge time as it flowed from one minute to the next, one hour to the next, without any possible means of measurement. Even with the volatile Sultana gone from the palace, the only regular, predictable intervals of activity were her meals. It seemed to Christine that each meal was served at the same time each day, with the same interval between that meal and the arrival of the next. However, nothing else seemed predictable. Christine was bathed at different times of the day – sometimes before being allowed to eat breakfast, sometimes just before the lamps were turned down and she slept (although she had no way of knowing if it was “night”), and quite often, at any time between those extremes. Her bed linens were likewise changed at whatever time the servant girls must find convenient – sometimes every day, sometimes not. Then, too, servants often came into the room for no purpose related to Christine, but to clean and polish and pound cushions. Clearly, the Sultana wanted her “special guests” to feel the dissonance of luxury and terror, pamperedness and pain, mixed. Christine wondered if any “special guest” had lasted as long as she, and wondered what it was the Sultana wanted of Erik that she had refrained so long from torturing her to death. Obviously it was something only Erik could give and Christine was the lever to obtain it from him.
Lever. Knob, button, balance.
Christine’s neck bent as she tilted her head back to look at the elaborate headboard rising into the semi-darkness above her. She did not raise her hand to explore, afraid that if she found the appropriate release, a trap would open… just as breakfast was being delivered. Then another thought occurred to her: how foolish was she to assume the furniture and fixtures in the room had not been changed – perhaps several times – since the days when Erik was in the palace. Would Erik have thought of this possibility himself? He would have, and would have built accordingly. Christine’s eyes moved again to the walls, to the elaborate, tiled arches, to the intervening painted oasis of palm trees. Her eyes drifted to the dark starred ceiling and she wondered if there existed peepholes among the stars. If so, she could do nothing without revealing herself. She pushed the thought away. To worry about a peephole would paralyze her. Better to be caught than to do nothing. Her eyes moved again to the walls.
The tiles. Is there a pattern, some subtle pattern that will reveal your secret to me Erik? Then, a darker thought, What if this room has no passages? What if Erik did not build this portion of the palace? Again, she pushed the thought away, refusing to allow doubts to dim her new optimism.
There came the sound of the lock, and the door opened to two servant girls who stopped their chatter mid-sentence. Christine fought the urge to smile at them, to speak to them, to encourage their talk. I must maintain my advantage! But it was strange how strong the urge to speak to the servants and guards had become when her silence was no longer a haughty refusal to speak to her captors, when she thought of all she might learn by speaking to them.
Christine harrumphed and rolled to place her back to the girls and to the ubiquitous guards at the door. She did this as much as from her own sudden frustration as because it was behavior that would not be uncharacteristic.
The servant girl cooed at her, “Coffee? I know you like the coffee…” Christine wondered if the servants – who had always treated her with kindness – were ordered to do so from some twisted cruel command of the Sultana, or whether they pitied the Sultana’s “special guests” and acted from that pity. As the lamp was turned up, Christine rolled back to the girl to examine her face, to see if she could detect duty to orders or the hoped-for pity. Genuine pity might be useful.
The girl was not looking at her. Both girls now moved about the room lighting the various lamps that would bring a daylit brightness to the room.
If only I could light lamps myself when night fell. Night was the only time during which the servants did not enter her room – she knew this from the last two sleepless nights spent thinking of escape and praying that the Sultana would not return to the palace as suddenly as she had left. But the only lamp left lighted during the night was a tall and heavy one that Christine could not carry about the room, and it was turned to a dimness her eyes could not overcome. Worse, the key to the lamp could not be turned without a special tool – she had tried the previous night, and failed.
Christine coveted the long matchsticks the girls plucked from ornate boxes which they then carried from lamp to lamp, lighting and adjusting each lamp to its fullest brightness.
If only…
As the smaller and more frail of the two girls returned to Christine’s bedside, Christine watched the girl from behind half-closed eyelids, trying to appear sleepy, but never losing her focus on the box of matchsticks. The girl placed the box on the side table, and again said in a singsong voice, “Coffee? Do you want coffee?” She did not look at Christine as she did this, but placed a cup under the spout of the samovar and twisted the key to begin filling the cup.
Christine feigned a great yawn and a stretch as she sat up on the edge of the bed, hoping she could reach the matchstick box, but it was too far. She allowed her feet to slip to the floor for greater leverage before she reached toward the proffered coffee cup. She sipped at the coffee and gasped, bringing her hand to her mouth and jerking the cup away from her lips. The coffee was in fact very hot, as she knew it would be – she had burned her mouth on two previous occasions when she did not let it cool in the cup before drinking. The girl before her skipped backward to avoid being spilt upon, and clucked angrily. At the same time, Christine fumbled the cup to the side table and bumped the ornate wooden box of matchsticks so that it fell to the floor. Christine hoped it looked accidental.
The hinged lid of the box bounced open as the box hit the carpet near the bed, and matchsticks burst out onto the carpet and the smooth marble floor beyond, looking like a bad throw of sticks in a game of spellicans. Christine began a patter of apologies – in French, of course – and bent to help collect the sticks. She handed all those she collected to the girl who now joined her on the floor until the girl appeared to lose her concern that Christine might being trying to secret any away. The other girl returned from the washroom with a rag with which to dry the small spill of coffee, but paid Christine no attention. Christine, with the smallest of movements, pushed several matchsticks toward her knees, and then beyond her knees toward her feet. As she stood, she used one foot to push the matchsticks farther under the bed. She remained standing in place hoping that even with the girls’ vantage f
rom where they still bent collecting the last few matchsticks or mopping at the floor, her feet would hide the view of those matchsticks now under the bed.
“Clumsy as a herd of oxen,” the mopping girl murmured under her breath.
Clearly she is not motivated by pity. Or perhaps she is, making amends for her uncharitable thoughts. Perhaps she is only human and is only unkind when I have caused her more work.
Christine remained standing until the servants stood again, hoping that the girls would not decide that now was the time to bathe or to change the linens. Instead, the girl who had poured the coffee pointed to the remains in the cup and said, “Hot.” She opened her mouth, stuck out her tongue, and fanned her tongue with her hand, before repeating, “Hot.” After some small rolling of her eyes, she spun and led the others from the room.
Christine did not wait. She retrieved the matchsticks and ran to the far side of the room, poking them handle down into the dirt of a potted plant and standing back to make certain that they could not be detected in their position behind the large leaves. She returned to the fresh coffee and sipped at it, smiling, hopeful that tonight she would be able to explore the room without fear.
The rest of the day passed with a slowness that was such exquisite torture she thought she would go mad. The servants did not enter again except for delivery of her meals, so Christine could not even distract herself with watching the girls clean, or with allowing herself to be bathed. A hundred times during that day, she wondered if this day was not being purposely prolonged, or if perhaps the servants had forgotten to turn her lights down and create her artificial night, and whether she had not been waiting through two days.
Night came. Christine was escorted from her seat among the cushions to the bed. Knowing that obedience was expected, she lay down, pulled the thin linen over her body, and watched as the lamps were all but one turned down to utter darkness. She remained still for some long time afterward, hoping that it was night, and that sleep would overcome all those whose task it was to watch and guard her.
Feeling that hours had passed, she slipped from the bed, and sneaked toward the plant and the hidden matchsticks. Having retrieved one, she moved to a small lamp and lit it. She stood frozen in the sudden wash of light, hoping that no guard was so vigilant outside her door as to notice the sudden flood of light from under the door. After a full minute passed during which Christine dared not breathe, she lifted the lamp and moved to the nearest arch. She ran her fingers over the tiles that lined the interior of the arch, first at the bottom of the arch and then reaching as high as she could up its walls. Erik often chose either the bottom or the very top of a doorway to hide the trip for the door – if there was a door. She examined the patterns of the tiles to see if she could detect any variation that would give a clue to any lever or button. Then she searched all the tiles between her highest reach and the bottom, unwilling to rely on her knowledge of Erik’s patterns.
Nothing.
She moved to the next arch. And the next.
After some long passage of time, she began to imagine that morning was approaching, and that she would be found, hunting the room with a forbidden lantern. Her searching became more hurried.
I can search again tomorrow night, calm yourself. But even so, she kept searching, casting occasional glances at the doorway.
She reached the archway beyond the cushions and the low table at the far side of the room. After promising herself that this would be the last of the arches she checked tonight, she passed her hands over the tiles at the extreme height of her reach, and squatted to do the same at the bottom of the arch.
There!
She felt something – some small irregularity in the smoothness of the elaborate mosaic. Her breath came fast as fear and excitement washed over her. Still squatting, she looked again to the door, needing with all her soul to explore the irregularity, and yet knowing that the sensible thing was to wait another day.
She pressed the small protuberance made by the uneven tile. There was no noise, no movement that Christine could detect. As she prepared to stand, a strange odor came to her, and she knew she had found one of Erik’s passages. She inhaled. The new odor smelled of hot sand, although she felt no heat, no change of temperature. She waited, first lifting the lantern above her head, and then returning it to the floor.
Ah! At the floor, the recessed wall enclosed by the arch appeared to be lifting, showing first a centimeter of darkness, and then two.
Counterbalances! The wall is moving onto its pivot!
Christine closed her eyes, praying to God that the counterbalance or the pivoting mechanism was still functional after all these years, and hoping for the time to discover the answer before breakfast could bring her plans to an end. The minutes seemed endless, but Christine could not leave her discovery. The door first rose, then shifted to one side. She heard the smallest sound like the ratchet of stone moving on sand, and then the door was on its pivot, and it swung soundlessly away from her, revealing blackness. Christine rose and took a step into the open doorway. Holding the lantern far behind her she looked into the darkness, straining to see if there was any other light coming from any other source. She saw nothing but a blackness so deep she might have had her eyes closed. She swung the lantern into the darkness before her.
A passageway, not simply a hidden room! Christine thought her heart would burst with relief and excitement and fear. Having found what she was seeking, she backed out of the passageway and into her room. She bent to trigger the mechanism that would close the door until the following night, when she would have more time to explore.
No! I must see what I can see. I needn’t venture down the passageway, but I must at least observe.
She stepped forward into the passageway again and held the lamp up. She peered as far as she could down the passageway. It ran straight and true for as far as the lamplight could penetrate. She moved around the still-open door and peered in the opposite direction down another long passage. She could not see if there were any other passages intersecting this one in either direction.
Enough! Tomorrow!
Her heart was beating with such violence in her chest that she could hear its echoes in her ears, feel the throbbing pulse at her throat.
Again, she stepped from the passage into her room. As she bent to press the button again, she saw her own distinct footprints in the dust of the floor inside the passage. She saw the distinct line of demarcation between the shining tile floor of her room and the dust of the passage.
This tunnel is never used – or has not been used in any recent time.
She pushed the button. She was pleased to see the relative speed with which the door closed, first meeting the walls of the framing arch, then lowering to the floor. Once all movement had ceased, she felt the seams between floor and door, between door and arch. She could detect no vestige of any opening.
She fought the childish urge to push the button again to assure herself that the door would work again, that she had not dreamed finding Erik’s passage.
Christine backed from the door, looking for any change that might alert the servant girls – or worse, the guards – that something was amiss. In the lamplight she watched as each backward step left a dusty footprint on the shining floor. She turned and ran the few steps to the low table and surrounding cushions. She lifted several large cushions and rubbed and scuffed her feet on the carpet beneath them before she replaced them. Leaving the lamp on the table, she took a smaller cushion and wiped at the floor, doing her best to remove any trace of her footprints.
She slowed her breath even while her mind spun with what her access to this passage could mean. With a large inhale and exhale that was almost a sigh, she returned the lamp to its place and turned it out. In the lower light of the remaining lamp by her bed, she moved across the room, and with a speed spurred by the tense thought that the door would open at any moment, flung herself into the bed and covered herself.
Tomorrow, she thought, over and ove
r, like a bell tolling within her. A warm pride mixed with the hopefulness within her, and her skin prickled with her excitement.
Tomorrow.
Knowing she would not sleep – not in her current state of agitation – she pushed her head into her pillow and pulled the linen over her, preparing her body for the impression of a sleeping woman.
Much to her surprise, she slept.
CHAPTER 21
THE SULTANA FINDS ERIK
Erik arranged the last of his masks into the case and ran his fingers and eyes over the various tinted skin creams he would use if further disguise was necessary. An assortment of costumes was already packed. The Persian and his servant were out concluding some business of their own – likely something that left the faithful Darius with the power and ability to carry on in Faraz’s brief absence. Or at least Erik hoped it would be brief. But long or brief, Erik could not envision failure.
We leave today, Christine. We shall be together soon.
Erik could hear Petter in the far room, and imagined he was packing his Brownie and its various trimmings – film spools, an extra neck strap, and possibly even the modified surveyor’s tripod. Erik did not see the purpose of bringing the tripod, but did not intend to tell Petter that the tripod must be left behind until such time as that became necessary. And he had faith that his son would see the necessity when it arose. Other than the boy’s invariable mooning over the shallow edifice of Constance, Erik was quite proud of his son. He showed ingenuity, courage, and the ability to think on his feet – he had maneuvered his tour of the Opera House quite well, and had accepted the introduction to its dark underground spaces without fear or trepidation. He accepted the Persian’s dire warnings with equanimity, and faced the coming expedition with courage. Erik could not imagine another man he would want accompanying him on this mission. Erik’s recent exertions – and injuries – had highlighted his own slower reactions and his waning strength (a frustrating discovery, but one he imagined fell to many men of his age), but this was not now his only reason for wanting Petter along. The boy was a calming influence whenever Erik’s anger threatened to push him to rash actions or statements – in this way he reminded Erik of Christine. The old Persian, of course, could be a liability. But perhaps he would also be of help – he could provide Erik with information, and perhaps even open useful doors.
